Alpine A390 GT review: a family-sized substitute for a sports car
It’s been quite the year. I turned 30, got married and bought a house. As my wife promised, I could finally start saving for a silly car now the sensible purchases were done.
As part of the DINKY (double income, no kids) brigade, I was getting excited while flicking through ads for sports cars. A Porsche Cayman was the obvious choice, with an Alpine A110 the alternative if I wanted to qflex my petrolhead credentials. However, there was another major life development around the corner that would crash into, then write off, my two-seater dream.
Yes, I am announcing my wife’s pregnancy through a car review. Let’s see who from my family and friends actually reads them!
Taking on the Porsche Macan
So I’ll have to settle for a Porsche Macan instead, right? Well, as luck would have it, Alpine has just released the A390. Could this electric crossover be to the Macan what the A110 is to the Cayman? The quirkier, more enthusiast-minded option for those who need both performance kicks and Isofix?
The A390 meets my wife’s criteria with ease: five seats, four doors, a large boot and 345 miles of child-wailing range. It also has all the technology you would expect from a car costing £61,390, including adaptive cruise control, lane assist and 360-degree parking cameras.
The GT model I had on test came to £72,140 once paint and options were added, including the £1,500 Driving Pack. This adds hands-free parking, which I only managed to get working once after several attempts on a quiet private road. I dread to think how it would fare on the school run, with a queue of cars behind me wondering why I was fiddling with the touchscreen rather than getting on with it. Thankfully, the rest of Alpine’s media system is fairly intuitive.
A local Alpine star
However, the more interesting question is whether it can get my heart racing as much as my now-totalled sports car dream.
At a glance, no one is going to confuse the A390 with a track-day toy: this is a 2.1-tonne electric SUV. I do like the way it looks, though. The ‘F1-inspired’ front wing bridging the sculpted bonnet gives the nose a purposeful feel, while the fastback roofline, smart light bar and bulging bodywork add a hint of aggression at the rear.
It looks sleek and streamlined, although I wonder if Alpine could have done more to distinguish it from the growing number of more mundane coupe-style SUVs now flooding the market.
The ‘Blue Alpine Vision’ paintwork, a £1,800 option, certainly helps, elevating the A390 above the dull black family cars littering my new suburban cul-de-sac. It also garnered a surprising amount of attention, including from a couple of mums in the neighbourhood who recognised Alpine as “the team from Drive to Survive with the handsome French boy”.
Inside the Alpine A390
Inside, the leather steering wheel and Sabelt seats feel suitably premium, with heating and massage functions adding some welcome luxury. Ambient lighting also gives the cabin a modern feel, with a selection of colours to choose from. My only real quibble is the illuminated Alpine logo on the dashboard, which reflects directly into the passenger-side door mirror.
I would also save money by losing the optional forged carbon trim. At £500 for two small tabs in the centre console and another £1,200 for the rears of the front seats, it feels plasticky and, despite claims around weight-saving, unnecessary in a battery-laden SUV.
I doubt Jean Redele, Alpine’s founder, would have imagined his lightweight-focused racing marque producing an electric SUV akin to a small whale 71 years after he established the company. But Alpine is hardly alone in bending its founding principles to cash in on the popularity of SUVs. Lotus abandoned its traditional obsession with simplicity and lightness to build large electric cars, while the Cayenne is often credited with saving Porsche.
A performance-focused SUV
I suspect Monsieur Redele would, however, be pleasantly surprised by how the A390 drives.
The 400hp GT tested here is propelled by three electric motors, one on the front axle and one for each rear wheel, delivering all-wheel drive and a maximum 488lb ft of torque. There is immediate shove when you ask for it, with 0-62mph taking just 4.8 seconds – nearly a second quicker than the equivalent electric Macan.
It also shares the wonderfully tempting red OV (for ‘overtake’) button with Alpine’s hot hatchback, the A290. Press it with your thumb and the A390 instantly unleashes full power for up to 10 seconds. I advise using it sparingly on longer journeys, as it’s very addictive and more smiles do mean fewer miles.
Driving the Alpine A390
Like many EVs, there isn’t much subtlety to the power delivery, but it is fun to give it a blast every now and again. I certainly wasn’t left wanting the extra 70hp offered by the more powerful A390 GTS, so I would take the GT model and its additional 22 miles of quoted range.
True to form, Alpine has thought about the corners, too. The car’s torque-vectoring system intelligently distributes the available thrust between the three motors, creating the illusion of lightness through agile handling and precise responses.
The weight, size and high centre of mass are still noticeable, but Alpine has done a decent job of masking them. Body-roll is limited, the car feels planted when you get on the accelerator out of a corner, and the pedal itself has been calibrated to mimic the feel of an A110.
The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tyres, developed specifically for EVs, never skipped a beat, no matter how hard I pushed them within the confines of public roads. There is a genuine sense that Alpine has tried to inject some sports car character into a vehicle that is considerably larger, heavier and more practical.
Driver coaching on the go
It may not be the obvious choice for a track day, but Alpine has even thought about how you might put its performance to the test. The infotainment system includes telemetry coaching, with acceleration, braking and cornering G-force challenges for the track, alongside efficiency targets to try on the road.
There is a lot of clever technology at work here, and the challenges are a genuinely fun way to encourage the driver to extract more from the car while improving their technique. It is the sort of feature that could easily have been a gimmick, but I can see it being an engaging way to interact with the A390’s performance if this was your one-car solution.
Overall, the A390 offers an interesting combination of practicality and performance. It makes a compelling case for having your cake and eating it, providing enough space for a family and luggage, yet enough Alpine DNA to keep the enthusiast interested. Maybe the easy-wipe, carbon-backed seats do make sense if the kids get car-sick from the A390’s impressive handling.
Verdict: Alpine A390
I am still left wondering if the A390 does enough to satisfy my craving for driving enjoyment, though.
Despite Alpine’s wizardry, the taller stature of the A390 inevitably puts it at a handling disadvantage compared with a similarly spacious estate car. It is impressive how the A390 disguises much of its size and weight, but it can’t simply make both tonnes disappear.
If anything, it has convinced me that perhaps the better decision is to buy a more sensible ‘dad wagon’ and compromise on excitement for the time being, keeping some powder dry for a proper sports car further down the line.
Midlife crisis, anyone?
James Male writes for Motoring Research